


Yarn & Shame

by FictionIsSocialInquiry, goldilocks23, ifyouwereamelody, MarkedMage, orphan_account, RideBoldlyRide, thewhiitelotus



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Aang is a Tindr date, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cock Sock AU, Comedy, Coronavirus AU, Explicit but no smut, F/M, Fluff and Crack, Kanna taught him to knit, P.S. Sokka is a needy bitch, Romantic Comedy, Zuko is sad about it and knits himself a conciliatory cock sock, Zutara, be prepared for cock sock galore, but seriously there are actual penises in this fic, here there be penises, living in london, what more is there to say?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:42:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28253343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionIsSocialInquiry/pseuds/FictionIsSocialInquiry, https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldilocks23/pseuds/goldilocks23, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifyouwereamelody/pseuds/ifyouwereamelody, https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarkedMage/pseuds/MarkedMage, https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account, https://archiveofourown.org/users/RideBoldlyRide/pseuds/RideBoldlyRide, https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewhiitelotus/pseuds/thewhiitelotus
Summary: Katara is on a date. Zuko comes up with a creative plan to drown his sorrows.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 41
Kudos: 157





	Yarn & Shame

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s who lent their cunning to this work of Western literary finery:
> 
> FictionIsSocialInquiry, RideBoldlyRide, ifyouwereamelody, goldilocks23, thewhiitelotus, MarkedMage, and theadamantdaughter.
> 
> Special mentions to RideBoldlyRide, FictionIsSocialInquiry, Doodleladi, and bulletproofteacup who were integral in coming up with the idea of Zuko knitting himself a cock sock.

The measuring tape is cold.

And it's winter.

 _And_ he’s drunk.

He tries not to take it personally.

But he’s not showing up for himself and it’s getting to him.

‘Fuck.’ The expletive tastes good, bleeds him of the frustration of _nine centimetres_ girth and the brittle insecurity that accompanies it… 

Why is he feeling insecure? The guy looked about twelve years old in the photo Katara had shown him earlier that afternoon; _he_ ’s the one who should be insecure… But then again, it’s _him_ who’s out on a date with Zuko’s flatmate so maybe there is cause for the insecurity after all.

He says _fuck_ again.

Mostly because he is drunk and bitter about being home alone while she’s out with some guy who looks like he belongs in a back-to-school commercial. But also because he only has this blue alpaca yarn and it’s reminding him _painfully_ of her eyes…

Shit, how the fuck did he get here?

—

**one (regrettable) hour ago**

—

**thirty (stupid) minutes ago**

So maybe Sokka had a point about Zuko’s reasons for drinking. Good for him.

But after the fifth— sixth— whisky… the reasons begin to blur together. He’s not lost sight of why he’s drinking exactly… but he’s kidding himself in saying that Sokka really has any part in it at all.

And that grates on him.

He’s drunk and pining and he needs something to do with his hands.

Maybe that’s how he ends up on etsy.

And then on raverly.com: Purveyor of knitting patterns.

Specifically cock sock knitting patterns.

Incidentally, Zuko discovers that there is a level of drunk where reading knitting patterns on your phone becomes impossible. This is how he ends up with the instructions for the Seamless Willie Warmer printed on a sheet of recycled A4 paper.

The measuring tape is cold...

—

**the (painful) present**

Yeah, fuck that poster boy for school supplies. The thought of the kid from Tinder burns worse than the whisky.

It doesn’t bear thinking about— his reasons for doing this. For how far this has gone because now he’s gripping himself— measuring tape and all— in an attempt to encourage _things_... on. Better. More.

He’s almost getting somewhere when he hears the scraping of a key in the door.

Fuck.

_Fuck!_

He doesn’t have the time or dexterity to move, doesn’t have the time or dexterity to hide _anything,_ as the door swings open.

The small progress that he had made— _significant_ , significant progress, not small— falls flat at the sight of Katara pressed up against the bald man-child; bald like a baby, not like The Rock or Bruce Willis or some other hairless celebrity.

Not that Katara seems to care. Zuko’s sure if her tongue isn’t all the way down the guy’s throat right now, it soon will be if left to their own devices. Unfortunately— fortunately?— he has interrupted their trajectory.

He catches her eye in a horrible moment of dawning horror.

_Fuck._

His flatmate chokes on her own saliva— or maybe it’s _Tinder boy’s_ saliva. In any event, she coughs it up and detangles herself enough to splutter, ‘Zuko?!’

She’s staring at him, eyes lidless with how wide they are.

Measuring tape around his stubbornly flaccid penis with another man in the room; there must be worse ways she could have seen his cock for the first time, though for the life of him he can’t think of any just now. 

—

To make it worse, it’s _her_ grandmother that taught him how to knit. It was that Christmas he spent with Kanna, Hakoda, Katara, and Sokka; the year his father told him not to bother showing his face at home unless he wanted a matching scar for his good eye.

Kanna had found him sulking, drunk on rice wine, and shown him the mindfulness hidden in knit one, purl two, in embroidery, in having something meaningful to do with his hands.

He knows Katara remembers this from the stricken flush in her cheeks, the way she eyes the spool of ocean-blue yarn trailing from the knitting needles that sit next to him.

He doesn’t bother trying to defend himself.

Just unloops the tape from his embarrassed cock and stuffs himself back into his trousers.

—

**fifteen minutes ago**

The night’s been amazing so far. Dinner was good, the mixed drinks were just strong enough, and the pretty blue-eyed girl across the way from him was pleasant as could be. 

As they enter the tube station, hand in hand, Aang chances taking the same train as Katara. The night is going well. Really well. While she casts a coy eye his way, she makes no comment, and they exit the station together at the southern end of the Bakerloo line, a block away from her flat. As they reach the door, he presses his luck; hand on her hip, he slides up behind her, a kiss on the curve of her jaw... 

What he can see of her face pinks in the yellow glow of the porch light. Taking this as consent, he slips his other hand to her shoulder and she catches her lip with her teeth. The deadbolt slides from the lock, and the door swings open. 

The lobby is dark, the stairs disappearing into the gloom ahead of them. Aang doesn’t know how many flights of stairs there are ahead of them. Gods, he hopes there aren’t many. Katara dances away from him, a playful glint in her eyes and a giggle on her lips. The color is now high on her cheeks, and he grins after her.

She begins the ascent backwards, her eyes fixed on him. Aang follows with single-minded focus. As they reach her floor, he speeds up, meeting her in the hallway. There is an audible thump as her shoulders meet the wall, and he pins her playfully with his body. Another giggle escapes her. 

With a victorious smile, he leans down to brush his lips against hers. 

‘I had a good night,’ she whispers.

His eyes are sparkling. ‘Me too.’

‘I’d love a good morning.’ Her teeth pull at her bottom lip again, looking up at him through her eyelashes.

‘Me too. Are you going to let me in?’

A scoff escapes her. He leans forwards and their mouths meet, hungry, ready. His tongue brushes across her lips, and she sighs into the kiss. It’s forward, eager, but Katara seems to be just as ready. Behind her, the apartment door opens with a click. She turns, pushing him backwards into the open room, pressing her lips hungrily against his.

But as she does, her eyes widen and her hands freeze. He pulls back, looking down at her questioningly, but she has not taken her eyes off of whatever horror lies over his shoulder.

‘Katara?’

He follows her gaze. She sucks in a breath only to break into a coughing fit. He can’t turn back to her, can’t look away from the sight of the man on the couch— her flatmate, maybe?— with a tape measure in one hand and his rapidly failing cock in the other.

‘Zuko?!’

Amber meets grey. 

Grey meets amber.

Amber meets blue. 

Blue meets amber.

Blue refuses to meet grey.

With a sudden sniff, Aang is the first to move.

‘Well, I’m out.’

—

**the (increasingly painful) present**

He’s almost crying at the sight of his flatmate’s fleeing date; Zuko can barely move, let alone bring himself to look at the flatmate in question.

‘Are you… Are you masturbating—’

‘No! _Katara!_ ’

‘—in our living room?’

‘I said no!’

‘Then what the hell are you—’

 _‘_ Fuck, no, listen, Sokka sent me—’

‘ _Stop._ Stop _right_ there, if you say another _word_ about what Sokka did to make this happen then I’m moving out. Fucking hell, I might have to do that anyway, I just— I mean, is this a habit?? Sitting around naked from the waist down whilst I’m out—’

‘ _I swear to God will you shut up! NO!’_

‘ _Are you kidding me??_ You’re the one who’s touching yourself in our living room, I don’t think you get to dictate this conversation!’

—

**later that night**

[ ](https://imgbb.com/)

—

**the next (mortifying) morning**

Zuko is reeling when he peels himself out of bed. It’s daylight now, has been for some time by the look of it. He’s stiff and slow and left with little doubt about the gravity of this hangover situation when a fly buzzing against his window pane is jackhammer-loud. It takes him until the shadows have moved from his desk to the pile of clothes on the chair until he convinces himself to get up.

Water.

He needs water.

This headache is going to _kill_ him. He knows everyone says that when they’re in the grips of a hangover, but right now he’s seriously concerned that this is the end.

He shuffles across the room, nearly trips on the hem of his trackies, the red ones that are too long— he’s been meaning to fix these for a while now. He’s so focused on rolling up the waistband that he doesn’t notice Katara standing by the coffee table, holding the ball of blue yarn in one hand and in the other...

_The print out._

Dexterity returns with agonising clarity; he is halfway across the room before his one functioning brain cell realises he’s moving.

Zuko wrenches both the whiskey-stained cock sock instructions _and_ the blue yarn from her, wrestles them away, and _flings_ them into his room.

Katara is frozen.

He’s never been less eager to be in the same room as her. ‘I need to pee,’ he announces. Loudly. Too loudly, very much too loudly.

She flinches.

Zuko is red as the Red Label bottle he’d finished last night as he hurtles from the room.

—

**two (kill me now) days later**

_Fuck._

Really, she wanted to avoid interacting with him altogether— preferably for the next year or two. Even looking at him is painful, never mind _talking_ to him.

But it seems the universe has other plans for her.

She takes a deep breath and steels her nerves before clearing her throat, making sure to be loud enough that Zuko can hear her from his place in the living room. His head turns so fast she’s surprised that he doesn’t get whiplash. The inevitable eye contact makes them both cringe, so she turns her attention to the basket of laundry that she’s placed on the table.

‘I, ah—’ she stammers and takes another deep breath. ‘I found one of your socks in the laundry.’ She sees him swallow, sees the horror in his eyes. ‘Like, a regular sock. One that goes on your feet.’ _Fucking hell, I’m going to kill him._

‘Oh.’ 

_How dare he sound relieved!_ ‘Yeah. So…’ She lifts the single white sock with two fingers, like it’s going to bite her if she holds on to it for too long, and lays it down on the table. ‘I’ll just... leave this here for you.’

‘Ah, yeah.’ 

She takes a chance and glances at him— their eyes catch, and they cringe again. Zuko clears his throat and croaks out, ‘Thanks, I guess.’

And with that, she flees to her bedroom.

  
  


—

**five (exceedingly uncomfortable) days later**

Their timing couldn’t have been worse.

Katara had thought that by now the coast would be clear, that Zuko would’ve finished up in the shower and left the way free for her to take her turn, but no. Because apparently that would be too easy.

She runs into him just as he’s walking past her bedroom door. Like, literally _runs into him_ in his post-shower, half-naked, towel-wrapped state and oh _God_ everything is just… right there. 

It doesn’t matter that this time he’s only bare from the waist up— the memory of everything under the towel is branded into her mind, raw and mortifying, and having him _this_ close wearing _this_ little is so wildly not okay right now.

‘Shit, Zuko—’

‘Sorry! You— I wasn’t expecting—’

‘It’s fine, it’s _fine_ , just let me—’

‘Which way are you—’

‘I’m trying to go— yeah, okay.’

‘Okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘Right, uh… Bye.’

‘Yeah. Bye.’

_God fucking damn it._

— 

**six (shut the fuck up Sokka) days later**

[ ](https://ibb.co/svjKs63)

— 

**seven (long) days later: part one**

Zuko makes the executive decision to never leave his room again— discounting emergencies.

He fills almost every container in the kitchen with water— leaving behind a few bowls and cups, so Katara doesn’t become suspicious— and grabs the family pack of Jaffa cakes from the top cupboard. He nods to himself, satisfied. These provisions should sustain him for at least two weeks.

He is mentally calculating how many days he can go without needing the toilet when he hears that dreaded sound of jangling keys from the hallway. In a panic, Zuko gathers as many of his water cups— hydration is the priority— as he can and bolts for his room, locking the door behind him. Katara’s muffled shuffling in the kitchen is deafening as he carefully places his hydration containers on the floor.

It doesn’t take her long to tap on his door. ‘Uh, Zuko. Why have you left an absolute fucking mess in the kitchen?’

He holds his breath. Maybe she’ll think he died if he waits this out for long enough. Though, she can probably hear his pounding heart through the door.

‘I know you’re in there. You left your mobile on the counter.’

Well, Zuko’s hardly known for being lucky.

—

**seven (long as fuck) days later: part two**

She lets out a breath, fingers tracing over the wooden grain of his door. Her hand falls to her side, an indecisive tapping on her thigh to count off each of her options.

This has always been the way of her family— barge in, demand answers, stubbornly refuse to leave until reconciliation is reached. In many circumstances, such an approach has solved a number of disagreements, whether her adversary be her brother or father or flatmate. But none of them had ever been half-naked, masturbating— _or not_ — in what used to be the comfortably-shared, _neutral_ space of the living room.

No doubt the sofa is absolutely defiled now.

Another breath fluffs her lips, dispelling the idea before anything worse than the image of Zuko appears in her mind. 

‘Fine,’ she calls again, not hiding her irritation. As much as she _wants_ to burst in and tear through the worst of this, Katara feels it isn’t the right solution. ‘The phone’s on the floor if you want it.’

— 

**ten (fuck my life and definitely fuck Sokka) days later**

— 

**fourteen (indescribably prolonged) days later**

The End of Days comes as he’s washing up after yet another dinner alone in his bedroom.

Katara is perched on the couch, his view of her obscured just enough by the countertop separating the kitchen from the living room that he can pretend she isn’t there. Or rather, he _could_ , if it weren’t for the TV flitting between channels every few seconds.

‘ _I’ll be there for you, when the rain starts to fall, I’ll be_ —’

‘— _there they go, folks, off to the sound of that starting pistol and it’s a nice push off the blocks from_ —’

 _‘_ — _Marilyn Monroe and her controversial lover were often known to partake in a good_ —’

 _‘_ — _stiff wind bringing the temperatures down overnight for a chilly morning tomorrow. That’s it for the weather. Back to you, Fiona.’_

The skipping finally settles, and the news blurs into background noise as Zuko rattles through the last of the cutlery.

‘ _The Coronavirus is the biggest threat this country has faced_ —’

Pans cleared away.

‘— _huge national effort to halt the growth of this virus_ —’

Dishes left to dry.

‘— _I must give the British people a very simple instruction: You must stay at home.’_

The glass slips from his hands to shatter on the floor.

‘Fuck!’

_No._

Katara whips around to look at him, and the panic in her face is sharp enough that the shards at his feet fade into the background by comparison.

 _Motherfucking cunting shitting no_.

_No..._

They’re stuck here.

They’re stuck in this shitty flat with each other’s shitty company and their awkward shitty silences because some moron five thousand miles away ate a bat and now the world is fucking ending.

Everything has frozen, the flat plunged into an icy, horrified stasis as he stares at his newly-appointed prison mate and she stares right back at him. Two weeks ago, an indefinite amount of time spent confined to this space with Katara would’ve felt like a blessing. Now, though, he takes a brief moment to contemplate the utter atrocities he must’ve committed in a past life to deserve this kind of karma, before following the thought through to its inevitable conclusion:

_Well._

_Guess there’s only one way we’re getting through this._

—

**fifteen (achingly sober) days later**

They’ve been saving the Royal Lochnagar Triple Matured whisky ever since they bought it on that trip to Aberdeen that ended with them both so blind drunk neither remembers how they got home. What had started as a hangover that had them trading turns in the Air BnB bathroom ended as a fond memory, and they’ve been saving the whisky ever since.

For a special occasion.

As in a _celebration_.

Katara landing that new job last year hadn’t qualified.

Zuko’s therapist describing him as _progressing nicely_ hadn’t broken out the good stuff.

But this?

Locked down for the bat disease with _that night_ hanging between them?

Yeah, he’s not doing this whole apocalypse sober.

When he finishes work for the day— working from home would be a luxury under literally any other circumstances— and braves the living room, she’s on the couch. Taking up the whole thing. Again.

Usually, he would bodily move her over until she remembers that they _share_ this apartment and the one couch in the living room. But the couch and living room and _touching_ is a tricky subject just now.

Zuko doesn’t move her.

He just sort of… clears his throat.

Katara doesn’t look away from the episode of _Killing Eve_ , but she shuffles and blushes, staring at the TV so determinedly it looks pained.

He sets the bottle down on the coffee table and sits.

A peace offering.

_Please, God, let her accept the peace offering._

‘Thirsty?’ He isn’t looking at her, so he doesn’t _see_ the moment she realises how that sounds, but he _hears_ her choke on her own words so he imagines it was a sight to behold. ‘For alcohol, I mean. Long day? Hard day? How was work, I mean! Oh, God.’

Zuko feels its best if he just… doesn’t acknowledge any of that.

Instead he sets the tumblers down; one before her, the other by his knee.

‘Wait, is that the Lochnagar?’ She sits forward here, her knee enters his peripheries but he will burn his other eye off before he looks up at her. ‘From Aberdeath?’

 _Aberdeath._ Those were the days. Slowly alcohol-poisoning yourself with your flatmate in Aberdeen; nothing awkward about a mutual embarrassment. Maybe he needs to walk in on her half naked, measuring her clit? Would that fix—

 _Nope. No._ ‘Yep,’ he says to drown out his traitor-thoughts.

It’s implied. By her silence. _Weren’t we saving that for something special?_

‘I thought we could use a drink,’ he explains, tearing the aluminum cap. Working the cork out of the bottle’s mouth becomes something of an ordeal… Is there a way to do this that is less reminiscent of wanking? If there is, he tries for it.

Katara nods, a less-than-convincing attempt at _casual_. ‘Yeah, alright.’

He is relieved at her lack of protest. He’s not sure his nerves are up to any more explanation than this. 

Silence falls between them as he pours her a nip first, then himself. Katara-silences used to be a myriad of things: comfortable, companionable, charged, silly, stubborn, _tense_ (though he’s gloomily aware the tense ones were only a mirror of his own unrequited feelings). They were fun and full and… honestly? Katara-silences were the only time he felt he could… just _be_ with another person. Katara-silences used to be the best; the pure and simple joy of being _alone with another_. But this silence? This Katara-silence?

Like all the others this week, it’s just… awkward.

And full of the not-spoken-about cock sock and blue alpaca yarn.

She feels it too, she must do; because she lets out a sudden snort that she tries to cover with a grossly fake cough. There’s an edge of desperation to the sound.

He chances a glance, just one. ‘What?’

Her cheeks are red as plums. ‘Nothing, nothing, it’s just… I realised that that’s exactly where you were sitting when—’

He jumps up as if the sofa’s burned him— Lochnagar and shame and all. ‘You like yours on the rocks, right? I forgot.’

It’s excuse enough.

He flees— temporarily— to the kitchen.

—

‘Refill.’

‘Get it yourself.’

‘Zuko. Refill.’

‘The bottle is _literally_ right next to you.’

‘I didn’t get laid two weeks ago because of you and your penis, pour me a damn whisky.’

He is too mortified to argue

—

Whisky is magic. It’s a beautiful, magical, miracle, all things good in the world, and right now Zuko doesn’t think he’s ever been more in love in his life.

_You beautiful bastard, I knew I could count on you._

(He neglects to remember that it’s the thing that got him into this whole mess in the first place.)

Because Katara is laughing— that snorting, wheezing laughter that only erupts from her when she’s hammered— and her eyes are shining, and he can _see_ they’re shining because she’s actually meeting his gaze properly for the first time in a fortnight. 

He’s not even sure exactly what it is that she’s laughing about, but he’ll be damned if he’s going to question this turning of the tides.

‘Oh my God, I’m _sweating_ ,’ she gasps, still only half-descended from the high of her mirth. Her face is flushed from the alcohol, and he can practically feel the heat radiating off her as she pushes up from the couch and slips past him towards the kitchen, leaving him to stretch languidly out across the cushions. ‘Want some water?’

‘Nah, I’m good. _One_ of us isn’t a fucking lightweight.’

‘Oh, so _that’s_ how it’s gonna be, is it?’ She narrows her eyes at him over the countertop, and her voice is slurring slightly but her lips have twisted in a way that he recognises as meaning _challenge accepted, tosser_. It’s generally a pretty reliable sign that Zuko’s about to have his arse handed to him. ‘In that case, why don’t we cast our minds back to final year of uni and revisit The Great Rainbow Vomit of ‘13—’

He sits up fast enough to make his head buzz in protest.

‘You swore you’d never mention that again!’

‘Well, _clearly_ I was lying because— Ow, fuck!’

Zuko frowns, craning his neck to eye the spot where Katara’s disappeared behind the counter.

‘You alright?’

She reappears after a couple of seconds, straightening up with something small and glinting pinched between her fingers.

‘No, I’m not. Just stepped on a bloody shard of glass that _you_ didn’t clear up properly after—’

She pulls to a sudden stop, face flooding with colour over and above the warm rosiness of her cheeks. Zuko can _see_ the journey her mind is taking, a pained trudge back through the smashed glass and the lockdown announcement and the two weeks of skirting around each other to land solidly on the memory of him, limp traitor of a dick in hand, sitting on this very sofa. His whole body clenches, the contented laxity of the liquor displaced in one sharp rush from his blood by cold, dousing reality .

She’s throwing them straight back into the Bad Times.

‘Okay, seriously, we need to talk about this. This whole shitshow. I just... God, what the fuck possessed you, Zuko?’

He splutters for a moment, shoots a glare in the direction of the half-empty bottle of whisky still sitting on the coffee table —

_Look, buddy, I’m not mad. I’m just disappointed._

— and then splutters a little more for good measure before finally managing to get something resembling actual speech out.

‘I don’t know, I don’t fucking… Sokka just... I wasn’t thinking straight, I was drunk—’

Katara snorts. ‘You don’t say. But _why_ were you drunk? Why were you sitting in our flat, on your own, wasted at half eleven on a Sunday night? Is something wrong, I mean, should I be worried about you?’

 _Should she be worried about him?_ Heat, hot and sharp, suffuses his face, his neck. If he thought the Katara-silences have been awkward since she saw him drunkenly wanking himself a cock sock, what the hell would she think if she found out that he’d been trying to distract himself from the thought of the woman he loved with another bloke? She’d think he was out of his mind or worse… 

She’d pity him.

He considers the half-empty tumbler between his hands; he sure as hell can’t meet her eyes. ‘There’s just a lot going on at the moment. Uncle’s getting old, the teashop takes a lot out of him. Work’s… just anxiety-inducing. Sokka won’t shut up about Suki. Like, ever. I really don’t need front row tickets to the haikus he writes about her but he keeps _sending_ them.’ It’s true. All of it. It’s just not the whole truth. He silently prays she doesn’t pry into exactly why a happy couple is so grating to him these days. ‘I was drunk and stupid and I’m sorry. Sokka sent this… You don’t want to know. And I just—’

‘The photo? Of the… Of the cock sock?’ She whispers the words as though that will lessen their power. It doesn’t.

He closes his eyes and finishes the drink _. Fuck._ ‘Fuck.’

‘Your uncle’s been up and down for a while now and you usually talk to me about it. _And_ about work… I’m… Zuko, you’re really starting to freak me out, can you just talk to me? I’m sure we can—’

‘You were out. On a date.’ His voice is loud, it’s too loud. These words are too big for this tiny fucking apartment and yet too small to convey just how undone he’d come by the end of the night. ‘And I needed a distraction. Something to make me… not think about it. About you. Being on a date.’

He reaches for what’s left of the Lochnagar, fills her tumbler before doing himself the same courtesy. He certainly isn’t going to wait for her to respond. He won’t look for the inevitable rejection, for the disgust and the fury—

‘Let me get this straight.’ Her tone isn’t what he expects; it’s not revulsion and anger and ridicule but Sunday-morning-crossword-Katara. That throws him. Every Sunday for the last three years he’s had this same puzzle-solving tone call out the clues to the Sunday Super Crossword from across the flat, and here it is now, puzzling through his batshit crazy confession. Zuko chances a glance at her. She’s shiny-eyed and flushed; she licks her lips before continuing. ‘You were upset about me being out on a date, so you drank yourself into thinking that it would be a good idea to… to knit a sock… for your cock.’

He’s red as his duvet cover, for fuck’s sake this is not a sustainable amount of blushing. ‘Katara—’

And God only knows what he’s about to say, what desperate acquittal he’s going to grasp for next, but he’s cut off abruptly from his floundering as Katara snorts, chokes, then…

Okay, so perhaps laughter is the best response he could’ve hoped to get, here.

But laughing _this hard_ feels like a pretty harsh blow to his already severely bruised ego.

‘I mean—’ She just about manages to get the words out between gasps. ‘—that’s just completely mad. Seriously, what the hell kind of an insane coping mechanism is that?’

‘One I would really, _really_ would like to forget about, if it’s all the same to you. And you can’t just blame me! Sokka—’

‘ _Nope_ , no, I still have absolutely zero interest in knowing any of the details about my brother’s part in all this, thanks.’

‘I was under the influence!’ Somehow— and he shouldn’t be surprised, Katara has always had a way of getting him to see the lighter side of life— he’s smiling, then chuckling, and then it’s hard to get the words out. But he tries. This is painful and awkward but it’s _miles_ ahead of the last two weeks of cringing whenever they’re in the same room. ‘And your brother doesn’t take no for an answer! I’m practically the victim here.’

‘I’m _literally_ the victim here! You’re…’ She doubles over, wiping at her eyes. ‘Jesus, Zuko, you’re _at best_ collateral damage.’

—

Zuko fetches the pitcher from the fridge and they settle somewhat after a cool glass of water. There’s some PSA blaring from the TV— something about 2m social distancing and wearing masks and public health but the rules don’t apply to families and people who live together.

Which is grand.

Because she’s crossed her legs and her left knee, her thigh, are resting over his. Maybe it’s the return of casual touch between them or the medicine of belly-aching laughter, but the Katara-silence is _almost_ warm and full again; it’s the first light of dawn after a long, dark night.

Zuko leans back, lays his arm across the back of the couch behind her. He can fix this. Maybe it will all be alright after all.

She has the remote in hand, flicking the TV over to Netflix. ‘You know,’ she says in a careful, loaded tone that instantly has him on edge, ‘if you’d just said that me going out with someone upset you, I wouldn’t have gone.’

‘What?’

She shrugs, a slow, tentative lift of her shoulders to match the lilt in her voice as her eyes flit to his, to the TV, and back again.

‘I wouldn’t have gone. I would’ve stayed here. With you.’

There’s a moment when he doubts his ears, then his understanding of the English language, then _hers_ because spontaneous brain injury and the loss of language capabilities seems far more likely than... _this_.

‘You would’ve…’

‘Stayed,’ she supplies, clicking play on some M. Night Shyamalan adaptation. ‘Here.’

‘With me?’

‘With you.’

The brain damage must clear because he’s suddenly able to process her words. ‘Wait, you… You feel the same?’

‘Look, don’t get me wrong, the last couple of weeks have made me _seriously_ question my judgement… But yeah, I do.’ She’s not looking at the TV anymore. He can see every inch of the pretty blush in her cheeks, the stubborn gleam in her eyes. ‘So, really, if you’d just told me instead having a fucking quarter-life crisis over it then we could’ve avoided this whole mess.’

The film opens with a series of martial arts and floating water but Zuko’s struggling to comprehend the words _Yeah, I do_ and _Katara_ and _him_ all in the same discussion. Besides, the special effects look awful.

He can’t help himself. He has to know. ‘Just so we’re on the same page… when you say you feel the same…’

Katara rolls her eyes, the picture of nonchalance except for the nervous fingers tapping against her leg. ‘I mean, if you and Mai ever decide to get back together again, I will support you but I might have to knit myself an emotional support dildo cover or something.’

Before the whisky and laughter and return of some semblance of balance, Zuko would have choked and fallen off the couch. _Now_ … Now his brain unhelpfully reminds him of his earlier thoughts, the ones about her clit and walking in on her half naked.

Zuko faces the dark screen. ‘I’ll link you the site.’

Beside him, Katara vibrates with silent laughter.

—

They watch the first few minutes of the film in a comfortable, charged, and increasingly tense silence. Except this is a tension that… yeah. This is no longer the awkward quiet of the last two weeks, not even close. This tension he can deal with. _This_ tension?

Zuko was _made_ to live this tension with Katara.

He leans closer, just a little, just enough that when he asks, ‘Whisky?’ he can feel the distinct warmth from her skin, the deliberate rise and fall of the breath she takes.

Katara turns suddenly, faces him as though he’s the ocean breeze or the warmth of a campfire on a cold winter’s night, and for a second all she does is... look. Her gaze flits across his face, taking in his expression, his closeness, and when she counters his question with one of her own, she does so with her eyes settled on his mouth.

‘Is this going to fuck everything up?’

The words are murmured, more a thought made sound than anything actually begging an answer. But he answers all the same.

‘I... guess there’s no way of knowing that.’

She meets his eyes at that, scrutinises him for a few moments more in a way that sends a warm prickle up the back of his neck, then—

‘Right. You’re right.’

And perhaps there’s some kind of blip in the space-time continuum, or perhaps he just full-on passes out for a second, but all at once she’s closed the gap between them and her lips are on his and _holy_ _shit_ she’s kissing him. His brain is slow to catch up, to pull out of the stunned, static white-out that’s buried it.

She’s _kissing_ him.

They’re _kissing._

_Not for much longer if you just sit there without kissing her back, you dick._

Shit, right.

His hands come up to find her waist, the back of her neck, and he feels Katara sigh against him, the slow press of her lips becoming more certain as he pulls her in closer. A tilt of his head sinks them that bit deeper, heat pooling at the base of his spine as her mouth parts beneath his and their rhythm picks up.

Why haven’t they been doing this the whole time? Why — why the _fuck —_ did it take him nine years and half a bottle of whisky and a fucking _cock sock_ hanging between them to finally say something?

Jesus, of _course_ she’s an incredible kisser.

He could stay here all night, with the taste of Lochnagar on her breath and the brush of her tongue on his lips, easy, no questions asked. But his body seems determined to strike at least one blow to the heady contentment that they’ve stumbled into — he can feel that pressure building in his lower belly, and it crosses his mind that, despite where they’ve landed, it’s probably a bit too soon to bring the subject of his cock back up right now. _Up_ being the operative word.

So he draws back, catching her lips once, twice more as he goes, and then, yes, Katara’s still sitting there in front of him when he opens his eyes. Not some bizarre, shame-induced fever-dream, then.

Words seem like a big ask right now.

‘Huh.’

‘Huh,’ she concurs.

‘So that was—’

‘Yep.’

‘Not fucked up.’

Katara blows out a hard breath, the beginnings of a slow-spreading smile pulling at her mouth.

‘ _Definitely_ not fucked up.’

It’s the look in her eye, the one she can’t hide as well as she might otherwise because the Lochnagar is empty on the coffee table before them… That look makes him think perhaps this lockdown _won’t_ be so bad afterall.

‘It’s the least fucked up thing since Boris put us all on house arrest.’

Her grin spreads, slow as syrup, and watching its upward climb Zuko finds himself without much of a pre-Lochnagar filter as well.

‘We’re gonna have to find a way to pass the time,’ he muses, the nonchalance that he was aiming for lost to the tell-tale grate in his voice.

Katara hums knowingly.

‘Yeah, how much yarn do you have leftover? ‘Cause I’ve heard that knitting is a great way to—’

‘Shut up.’

Her eyes are sweeping over him again, lip caught between her teeth, and now there’s a heaviness, an _appetite_ to her gaze that wasn’t there before — like she’s shifted from contemplating how she might feel about him to how he might feel under her hands. And it just about knocks him sideways because _holy crap_ he’s seen that look on her face before, on uni nights out, quiet evenings spent lazing around the flat, during a hazy, alcohol-soaked moment up in Aberdeen before all the vomiting started...

Some sense of the scale of what they’re dealing with seeps in, and he’s gripped by the overwhelming urge to lean back in and wipe that shit-eating smile off her face, just to show her that, yes, he’s got the weight of years’ worth of pining in _his_ corner, too. But before he can move, she scoots in close, the soft skin of her thigh brushing against his again, and the touch sends shockwaves of _something_ coursing up his spine. He gulps, sucking in a deep breath through clenched teeth, and she leans forwards until she’s all he can see, until his vision is full of her and his mouth is full of the taste of whisky on her breath.

‘Make me,’ she murmurs, and his gaze catches on the deep blue of her eyes even as the whiplash of the evening sends him spinning.

‘Sorry, what?’

She laughs, a groaned, self-deprecating breath, as if she can’t quite believe she’s being so brazen. But when her eyes flick back to his, her pupils are blown wide, her lips quirking up in the barest ghost of a smirk as her brow lifts.

 _Guess I’m committing to this,_ she’s saying. _Take it or leave it._

‘Make me.’

Well.

He’s never been one to turn down a challenge.

—

**a few (incredible, awesome, mind-blowing) hours later**

[ ](https://ibb.co/99DDLsL)

**Author's Note:**

> COCK SOCK GIVEAWAY
> 
> So, you made it to the end of our strange little story, and now we offer you the opportunity to win riches beyond your wildest dreams. Or perhaps your weirdest dreams.
> 
> Everyone who comments on this fic (words, not just like a full stop or some cheaty bullshit like that) will be entered into our draw to win the very cock sock that Sokka bought for himself. Yes, you read it right, the very cock sock. So comment away -- we'll draw a name at random on New Year's Eve and contact the winner via a reply to their comment (if you want to comment but don't wish to be involved in the draw, then just say so and we'll leave your name out!).
> 
> Merry Christmas to all!
> 
> P.S. If you would like to see some spectacular Christmas card art of Zuko's socked cock in a box... https://fictionissocialinquiry.tumblr.com/post/638261555613564928/the-cock-sock-au


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